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Ken Pomeroy projection: EMU will be about as bad as last year

Ken Pomeroy’s ratings and projections for the 2011-12 men’s basketball season are now up, and EMU is projected to be about where they ended last year.

In the non-conference schedule, Pomeroy predicts that EMU will win home games against Rochester (not Division I — not even NCAA — so he counts it as an automatic 100%), Illinois-Chicago, and Arkansas-Little Rock.with the worst losses at Syracuse, Purdue, and Virginia Tech. In the MAC, EMU is projected to defeat Central Michigan and Northern Illinois in Ypsilanti and Toledo twice. He also expects the Eagles to pick up one additional MAC (most likely: at Northern Illinois, vs Bowling Green) and one additional non-MAC win (most likely: at Texas Southern, at Radford, at Colgate), for a final record of 9-20 (5-11 MAC). That would rank them tenth overall in the MAC and fourth in the West Division, ahead of Northern Illinois.

Looking at specific projected strengths and weaknesses, the Eagles should be respectable on defense but atrocious offensively (328th out of 345), which generally matches what we saw in the first exhibition game.